It is time for Zorba to start meditating, and it is time for the people who are meditators not to allow themselves to escape from the world... Only in completion is there bliss. Only in completion have you come home.
Osho

Monday, 31 December 2012

Your true nature is always within your reach because it is always here and it is intrinsically you. It is not something you are separate from. Only your mind would tell you this.

Being who you are will immediately have you standing completely free from who you think you are. It is here - and only here - that the journey of true self-remembrance begins. True self-remembrance begins with your freedom from what you are not.

No amount of who you think you are, or gained experience, is going to deliver you to who you already are. There is no getting around the surrendering of these ideas and the actualisation, or motion of alignment, of your conscious attention to the 'one' that is seeing through your eyes right now.

Here, you will come to remember the wondrousness of your true nature - the heart.

You can take time anywhere to tune in and feel your true nature. Allow yourself to sink your attention below the mind and whatever it is saying. Focus your attention instead on what is always here. Rest in the peace and freedom that is always here.

Close your eyes and feel the whole universe filled with sound. Feel as if every sound is moving toward you and you are the center. This feeling that you are the center will give you a very deep peace. The whole universe becomes the circumference and you are the center, and everything is moving toward you, falling toward you.

The center is without sound, that is why you can hear sounds — a sound cannot hear another sound. The center is absolute silence. That is why you can hear sounds entering you, coming to you, penetrating you, encircling you.

If you can find out where is the center, where is the field in you to where every sound is coming, suddenly sounds will disappear and you will enter into soundlessness. If you can feel a center where every sound is being heard, there is a sudden transference of consciousness. One moment you will be hearing the whole world filled with sounds, and another moment your awareness will suddenly turn in and you will hear the soundlessness, the center of life.

Do not start thinking about the sounds — that this is good and that is bad, and this is disturbing and that is very beautiful and harmonious. Simply think of the center. Just remember that you are the center and all the sounds are moving toward you — every sound, whatsoever the sort.

Sounds are not heard in the ears, the ears cannot hear them. The ears only do a transmission work, and in the transmission they cut out much which is useless for you. They choose, they select, and then those sounds enter you. Now find out within, where is your center. The ears are not the center, you are hearing from somewhere deep down. The ears are simply sending you the selected sounds. Where are you? Where is your center?

Yoga believes in struggle; Yoga is basically the path of will. Tantra does not believe in a struggle; Tantra is not the path of will. Rather, on the contrary, Tantra is the path of total surrender. Your will is not needed. For Tantra your will is the problem, the source of all anguish. For Yoga your surrender, your will-lessness is the problem.
Because your will is weak, that is why you are in anguish, suffering — for Yoga. For Tantra, because you have a will, because you have an ego, an individuality, that is why you are suffering. Yoga says, bring your will to absolute perfection and you will be liberated. Tantra says, dissolve your will completely, become totally emptied of it, and that will be your liberation. Both are right; this creates the problem. For me, both are right.
But the path of Yoga is a very difficult one. It is just impossible, nearly impossible, that you can attain to the perfection of the ego. It means you become the center of the whole universe. The path is very long, arduous, and really, it never reaches to the end. So what happens to the followers of Yoga? Somewhere on the path, in some life, they turn to Tantra.
Intellectually Yoga is conceivable; existentially it is impossible. If it is possible you will reach by Yoga also, but generally it never happens. Even if it happens, it happens very rarely, such as to a Mahavir. Sometimes centuries and centuries pass and then a man like Mahavir appears who has achieved through Yoga. But he is rare, an exception, and he breaks the rule.
But Yoga is more attractive than Tantra. Tantra is easy, natural, and you can attain through Tantra very easily, very naturally, effortlessly. Because of this, Tantra never appeals to you as much. Why? Anything that appeals to you appeals to your ego. Whatsoever you feel is going to fulfill your ego will appeal to you more. You are gripped in the ego; thus Yoga appeals to you very much.
Really, the more egoistic you are, the more Yoga will appeal to you, because it is pure ego effort. The more impossible, the more it is appealing to the ego. That is why Mount. Everest has so much appeal. There is so much attraction to reach to the top of a Himalayan peak because it is so difficult. When Hillary and Tensing reached Mount. Everest they felt a very ecstatic moment. What was that? It was because the ego was fulfilled ; they were the first.
When the first man landed on the moon, can you imagine how he felt? He was the first in all of history. Now he cannot be replaced; he will remain the first in all the history to come. Now there is no way to change his status. The ego is fulfilled deeply. There is no competitor now, and there cannot be. Many will land on the moon but they will not be the first. But many can land on the moon and many can go to Everest — Yoga gives you a higher peak. And the more unreachable the end, the more there is the perfection of the ego — pure, perfect, absolute ego.
Yoga would have appealed to Nietzsche very much because he felt that the energy which is working behind life is the energy of will — the will to power. Yoga gives you that feeling. You are more powerful through it.
The more you can control yourself, the more you can control your instincts, the more you can control your body and the more you can control your mind, then the more you feel powerful. You become a master inside. But this is through conflict; this is through struggle and violence.
It always happens, more or less, that a person who has been practicing Yoga for many lives comes to a point where the whole journey becomes drab, dreary and futile because the more ego is fulfilled, the more you will feel it is useless. Then the follower of the path of Yoga turns to Tantra.
But Yoga appeals because everyone is an egoist.
Tantra never appeals in the beginning. Tantra can appeal only to the higher depths — to those who have worked on themselves, who have really been struggling through Yoga for many lives. Then Tantra appeals to them because they can understand. Ordinarily you will not be attracted by Tantra, and if you are attracted you will be attracted by the wrong reasons, so try to understand them also.
You will not be attracted by Tantra in the first place because it asks you to surrender, not to fight. It asks you to float, not to swim. It asks you to move with the current, not to go upstream. It tells you nature is good; trust nature, do not fight it. Even sex is good. Trust it, follow it, flow into it; do not fight it. “No-fight” is the central teaching of Tantra. Flow. Let go! It cannot appeal, there is no fulfillment of your ego through it. In the first step it asks for your ego to be dissolved, in the very beginning it asks you to dissolve it.
Yoga also asks you, but at the end. First it will ask you to purify it. And if it is purified completely it dissolves, it cannot remain. But that is the last in Yoga, and in Tantra that is the first. So Tantra will not appeal generally. And if it does appeal, it will appeal for wrong reasons. For example, if you want to indulge in sex then you can rationalize your indulgence through Tantra. That can become the appeal. If you want to indulge in wine, in women, in other things, you can feel attracted toward Tantra. But really, you are not attracted to Tantra. Tantra is a façade, a trick. You are attracted to something else which you think Tantra allows you. So Tantra always appeals for wrong reasons.
Tantra is not to help your indulgence, it is to transform it.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin was interested in girls, but he had very bad luck with girls; no one would like him. He was going to meet a certain girl for the first time, so he asked a friend, “What is your secret? You are wonderful with women, you simply hypnotize them, and I am always a failure. So give me some clue. I am going on a date for the first time with a girl, so give me some secrets.”
The friend said, “Remember three things: always talk about food, family and philosophy.”
“Why about food?” Mulla asked.
The friend said, “I talk about food because then the girl feels good - because every woman is interested in food. She is food for the child, for the whole humanity she is food, so she is basically interested in food.”
Mulla said, “Okay. And why family?”
So the man said, “Talk about her family so your intentions look honorable.”
Then Mulla said, “And why about philosophy?”
The man said, “Talk about philosophy. That makes the woman feel that she is intelligent."
So Mulla rushed away and immediately, when he saw a girl, he said, “Hello, do you like noodles?”
The girl was startled and said, “No!”
Then the Mulla asked the second question: “Have you got two brothers?”
The girl was even more startled and wondered, “What type of date is this?” She said, “No!”
So for a moment Mulla was at a loss. He wondered, “How to start talking about philosophy?” Just for a moment he was at a loss, and then he asked, “Now, if you had a brother, would he like noodles?”

If you are really flowing with sex energy, totally surrendered, sooner or later you will arrive at the point where you will know that sex cannot only give birth to a new life: sex can give you more life. To lovers sex can become a life-giving force, but for that you need a surrender. And once you are surrendered, many dimensions change.

I will not tell you - renounce money. That has been told to you down the ages; it has not changed you. I am going to tell you something else: celebrate life, and the obsession with money disappears automatically. And when it goes on its own accord, it leaves no scratches, it leaves no wounds behind, it leaves no traces behind.Osho

Once you know this, even the partner is not needed.
You can simply remember the act and enter into it. But first you must have the
feeling. If you know the feeling, you can enter into the act without the
partner. This is a little difficult, but it happens. And unless it happens, you
go on being dependent, a dependency is created.

For so many reasons it happens. If you have had the feeling, if you have
known the moment when you were not there but only a vibrating energy had become
one and there was a circle with the partner, in that moment there was no
partner. In that moment only you are, and for the partner you are not: only he
or she is. That oneness is centered within you; the partner is no more there.
And it is easier for women to have this feeling because they are always making
love with closed eyes.

During this technique, it is good if you have your
eyes closed. Then only an inner feeling of a circle, only an inner feeling of
oneness, is there. Then just remember it. Close your eyes; lie down as if you
are with your partner. Just remember and start feeling it. Your body will begin
to shake and vibrate. Allow it! Forget completely that the other is not there.
Move as if the other is present. Only in the beginning is it "as if." Once you
know, then it is not "as if," then the other is there.

Move as if you are
actually going into the love act. Do whatsoever you would have done with your
partner. Scream, move, shake. Soon the circle will be there, and this circle is
miraculous. Soon you will feel that the circle is created, but now this circle
is not created with a man and woman. If you are man, then the whole universe has
become woman; if you are woman, then the whole universe has become man. Now you
are in a deep communion with the existence itself, and the door, the other, is
no more there.

The other is simply a door. While making love to a woman,
you are really making love to existence itself. The woman is just a door, the
man is just a door. The other is just a door for the whole, but you are in such
a hurry you never feel it. If you remain in communion, in deep embrace for hours
together, you will forget the other and the other will just become an extension
of the whole. Once this technique is known you can use it alone, and when you
can use it alone it gives you a new freedom -- freedom from the other.

It
really happens that the whole existence becomes the other -- your beloved, your
lover -- and then this technique can be used continuously, and one can remain in
constant communion with the existence. And then you can do it in other
dimensions also. Walking in the morning, you can do it. Then you are in
communion with the air, with the rising sun and the stars and the trees. Staring
at the stars in the night, you can do it. Looking at the moon, you can do it.
You can be in the sex act with the whole universe once you know how it
happens.

But it is good to start with human beings because they are
nearest to you -- the nearest part of the universe. But they are dispensable.
You can take a jump and forget the door completely -- "EVEN REMEMBERING UNION,
THE TRANSFORMATION" -- and you WILL be transformed, you will become
new.

Tantra uses sex as a vehicle. It is energy; it can be used as a
vehicle. It can transform you, and it can give you transcendental states. But as
we are using sex, it looks difficult for us -- because we are using it in a very
wrong way, and the wrong way is not natural. Even animals are better than us:
they are using it in a natural way. Our ways are perverted. Constant hammering
on the human mind that sex is sin has created a deep barrier within you. You
never allow yourself a total let-go.

Something is always standing aloof condemning, even for the new
generation. They may say they are not burdened, obsessed, that sex is not a
taboo for them, but you cannot unburden your unconscious so easily. It has been
built over centuries and centuries; the whole human past is there. So while you
may not be condemning it as sin consciously, the unconscious is there constantly
condemning it. You are never totally in it. Something is always left out. That
left-out part creates the split.

Tantra says move in it totally. Just
forget yourself, your civilization, your religion, your culture, your ideology.
Forget everything. Just move in the sex act: move in it totally; do not leave
anything out. Become absolutely non-thinking. Only then does the awareness
happen that you have become one with someone. And this feeling of oneness can
then be detached from the partner and it can be used with the whole universe.
You can be in a sex act with a tree, with the moon, with anything. Once, you
know how to create this circle, it can be created with anything -- even without
anything.

You can create this circle within yourself because man is both
man and woman, and woman is both woman and man. You are both because you were
created by two, You were created by man and woman both, so half of you remains
the other. You can forget everything completely, and the circle can be created
within you. Once the circle is created within you -- your man is meeting your
woman, the inner woman is meeting the inner man -- you are in an embrace within
yourself. And only when this circle is created is real celibacy attained.
Otherwise all celibacies are just perversions, and then they create their own
problems. When this circle is created inside, you are freed.

This is what
tantra says: "Sex is the deepest bondage, yet it can be used as a vehicle for
the highest freedom." Tantra says poison can be used as medicine, but wisdom is
needed. So do not condemn anything. Rather, use it. And do not be against
anything. Find out ways how it can be used and transformed. Tantra is a deep,
total acceptance of life. It is the only approach of its kind. All over the
world, in all the centuries that have gone by, tantra is unique. It says don't
throw anything and don't be against anything and don't create any conflict,
because with any conflict you will be destructive with yourself.

All the
religions are against sex, afraid of it, because it is such a great energy. Once
you are in it you are no more, and then the current will take you anywhere. That
is why the fear. So create a barrier in which you and the current become two,
and do not allow this vital energy to have any possession over you: be the
master of it.

Only tantra says that this mastery is going to be false,
diseased, pathological, because you cannot really be divided with this current.
You are it! So all divisions will be false, arbitrary, and basically, no
division is possible because you are the current -- a part and parcel of it,
just a wave in it. You can become frozen and you can separate yourself from the
current, but that frozenness will be deadness. And humanity has become dead. No
one is really alive; you are just dead weights floating in the stream.
Melt!

Tantra says try to melt. Do not become like icebergs: melt and
become one with the river. Becoming one with the river, feeling one with the
river, merging in the river, be aware and there will be transformation. There IS
transformation. Transformation is not through conflict; it is through awareness.
These three techniques are very, very scientific, but then sex becomes something
other than what you know. Then it is not a temporary relief; then it is not
throwing energy out. Then there is no end to it. It becomes a meditative
circle.

"AT THE START OF SEXUAL UNION KEEP ATTENTIVE ON THE FIRE IN THE
BEGINNING, AND SO CONTINUING, AVOID THE EMBERS IN THE END."

Osho - Sex can be a very deep fulfillment, and sex can throw you
back to your wholeness, to your natural, real being, for many reasons. Those
reasons have to be understood. One, sex is a total act. You are thrown off your
mind, off balance. That is why there is so much fear of sex. You are identified
with the mind, and sex is a no-mind act. You become headless; you do not have
any head in the act. There is no reasoning, no mental process. And if there is
any mental process, there is no real, authentic sex act. Then there is no
orgasm, no fulfillment. Then the sex act itself becomes a local thing, something
cerebral, and it has become so.

All over the world, so much hankering, so
much lust for sex, is not because the world has become more sexual. It is
because you cannot even enjoy sex as a total act. The world was more sexual
before. That is why there was no such hankering for sex. This hankering shows
that the real is missing and there is only the false. The whole modern mind has
become sexual because the sex act itself is no more there. Even the sex act is
transferred to the mind. It has become mental; you think about it.

Many
people come to me: they say they go on thinking about sex; they enjoy thinking
about it, reading, seeing pictures, pornography. They enjoy this, but when the
actual moment for sex comes they suddenly feel they are not interested. They
even feel they have become impotent. They feel vital energy when they are
thinking. When they want to move into the actual act, they feel there is no
energy, even no desire. They feel that the body has become dead.

What is
happening to them? Even the sex act has become mental. They can only think about
it; they cannot do it because doing will involve their whole being. And whenever
there is any involvement of the whole, the head becomes uneasy because then it
can no more be the master; it can no more be in control.

Tantra uses the
sex act to make you whole, but then you have to move in it very meditatively.
Then you have to move in it forgetting all that you have heard about sex,
studied about sex, all that the society has told you: the church, your religion,
the teachers. Forget everything and get involved in it in your totality. Forget
to control! Control is the barrier. Rather, be possessed by it; do not control
it. Move in it as if you have become mad. The "no-mind" state looks like
madness. Become the body, become the animal, because the animal is whole. And as
modern man is, only sex seems to be the easiest possibility to make you whole
because sex is the deepest, the biological center within you. You are born out
of it. Your every cell is a sex cell; your whole body is a sex-energy
phenomenon.

This first sutra says:- "AT THE START OF SEXUAL UNION KEEP
ATTENTIVE ON THE FIRE IN THE BEGINNING, AND SO CONTINUING, AVOID THE EMBERS IN
THE END."

And this makes
the whole difference. For you, the sex act is a release. So when you move in it
you are in a hurry. You just want a release. Overflowing energy will be
released; you will feel at ease. This at-easeness is just a sort of weakness.
Overflowing energy creates tensions, excitement. You feel something has to be
done. When the energy is released, you feel weak. You may take this weakness as
relaxation. Because the excitement is no more, the overflowing energy is no
more, you can relax. But this relaxation is a negative relaxation. If you can
relax just by throwing energy, it is at a very great cost. And this relaxation
can only be physical. It cannot go deeper and cannot become
spiritual.

This first sutra says don't be in a hurry and do not hanker
for the end: remain with the beginning. There are two parts to the sex act --
the beginning and the end. Remain with the beginning. The beginning part is more
relaxed, warm. But do not be in a hurry to move to the end. Forget the end
completely.

"At the start of sexual union, keep attentive on the fire in
the beginning." While you are overflowing, do not think in terms of release:
remain with this overflowing energy. Do not seek ejaculation: forget it
completely. Be whole in this warm beginning. Remain with your beloved or your
lover as if you have become one. Create a circle.

There are three
possibilities. Two lovers meeting can create three figures -- geometrical
figures. You may have even read about it or even seen an old alchemical picture
in which a man and woman are standing naked within three geometrical figures.
One figure is a square, another figure is a triangle and the third figure is a
circle.

This is one of the old alchemical and tantric analyses of the sex
act. Ordinarily, when you are in the sex act, there are four persons, not two,
and this is a square: four angles are there because you yourself are divided in
two -- into the thinking part and the feeling part. Your partner is also divided
in two; you are four persons. Two persons are not meeting there, four persons
are meeting. It is a crowd, and there can be no deep meeting really. There are
four corners, and the meeting is just false. It looks like a meeting, but it is
not. There can be no communion because your deeper part is hidden and your
beloved's deeper part is also hidden. And only two heads are meeting, only two
thinking processes are meeting -- not two feeling processes. They are
hidden.

The second type of meeting can be like a triangle. You are two --
two angles of the base. For a sudden moment you become one, like the third angle
of the triangle. For a sudden moment your two-ness is lost and you become one.
This is better than a square meeting because at least for a single moment there
is oneness. That oneness gives you health, vitality. You feel alive and young
again.

But the third is the best and the third is the tantric meeting:
you become a circle. There are no angles, and the meeting is not for a single
moment. The meeting is really non-temporal; there is no time in it. And this can
happen only if you are not seeking ejaculation. If you are seeking ejaculation,
then it will become a triangle meeting -- because the moment there is
ejaculation the contact point is lost.

Remain with the beginning; do not
move to the end. How to remain in the beginning? Many things are to be
remembered. First, don't take the sex act as a way of going anywhere. Don't take
it as a means: it is the end in itself. There is no end to it; it is not a
means. Secondly, do not think of the future; remain with the present. And if you
cannot remain in the present in the beginning part of the sex act, then you can
never remain in the present -- because the very nature of the act is such that
you are thrown into the present.

Remain in the present. Enjoy the meeting
of two bodies, two souls, and merge into each other, melt into each other.
Forget that you are going anywhere. Remain in the moment going nowhere, and
melt. Warmth, love, should be made a situation for two persons to melt into each
other. That is why, if there is no love, the sex act is a hurried act. You are
using the other; the other is just a means. And the other is using you. You are
exploiting each other, not merging into each other. With love you can merge.
This merging in the beginning will give many new insights.

If you are not
in a hurry to finish the act, the act, by and by, becomes less and less sexual
and more and more spiritual. Sex organs also melt into each other. A deep,
silent communion happens between two body energies, and then you can remain for
hours together. This togetherness moves deeper and deeper as time passes. But
don't think. Remain with the moment deeply merged. It becomes an ecstasy, a
samadhi, cosmic consciousness. And if you can know this, if you can feel and
realize this, your sexual mind will become non-sexual. A very deep BRAHMACHARYA,
CELIBACY, can be attained. Celibacy can be attained through it!

This
looks paradoxical because we have been always thinking in terms that if a person
has to remain celibate he must not look at the other sex, he must not meet the
other sex. He must avoid, escape. A very false celibacy happens then: the mind
goes on thinking about the other sex. And the more you escape from the other,
the more you have to think, because this is a basic, deep need.

Tantra
says do not try to escape; there is no escape possible. Rather, use nature
itself to transcend. Don't fight: accept nature in order to transcend it. If
this communion with your beloved or your lover is prolonged with no end in mind,
then you can just remain in the beginning. Excitement is energy. You can lose
it; you can come to a peak. Then the energy is lost and a depression will
follow, a weakness will follow. You may take it as relaxation, but it is
negative.

Tantra gives you a dimension of a higher relaxation which is
positive. Both partners melting with each other give vital energy to each other.
They become a circle, and their energy begins to move in a circle. They are
giving life to each other, renewing life. No energy is lost. Rather, more energy
is gained because through the contact with the opposite sex your every cell is
challenged, excited. And if you can merge into that excitement without leading
it to a peak, if you can remain in the beginning without becoming hot, just
remaining warm, then those two "warmths" will meet and you can prolong the act
for a very long time. With no ejaculation, with no throwing energy out, it
becomes a meditation, and through it you become whole. Through it your split
personality is no more split: it is bridged.

All neurosis is a
"splitness." If you are bridged again, you become again a child -- innocent. And
once you know this innocence you can go on behaving in your society as it
requires. But now this behavior is just a drama, an acting. You are not involved
in it. It is a requirement, so you do it. But you are not in it; you are just
acting.

You will have to use unreal faces because you live in an unreal
world; otherwise the world will crush you and kill you. We have killed many real
faces. We crucified Jesus because he started behaving like a real man. The
unreal society will not tolerate it. We poisoned Socrates because he started
behaving like a real man. Behave as the society requires; do not create
unnecessary troubles for yourself and others. But once you know your real being
and the wholeness, the unreal society cannot drive you neurotic; it cannot make
you mad.

"AT THE START OF SEXUAL UNION KEEP ATTENTIVE ON THE FIRE IN THE
BEGINNING, AND SO CONTINUING, AVOID THE EMBERS IN THE END". IF ejaculation is
there, energy is dissipated. Then there is no more fire. You are simply relieved
of your energy without gaining
anything.

Sunday, 30 December 2012

If people are allowed to live their sexual life joyously, by the time they are nearing forty-two — remember, I am saying forty-two, not eighty-four — just when they are nearing forty-two, sex will start losing its grip on them. Just as sex arises and becomes very powerful by the age one is fourteen, in exactly the same way by the time one is forty-two it starts disappearing. It is a natural course.Osho

BELOVED OSHO, RECENTLY YOU SPOKE ABOUT THE WILL TO POWER. YOU EXPLAINED THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING THIS WILL, THIS LONGING, TO BECOME A MASTER OVER ONE'S SELF. YOU ALSO OFTEN DECLARE THAT EVERY DESIRE IS THE BASIC REASON FOR MAN'S FRUSTRATION. CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WILL AND DESIRE?

Gyan Saahaba, the difference between will and desire is great, although they appear almost similar. Desire is always for things. More money, more prestige, more respectability, more knowledge, more virtue, a better place in the afterlife -- these are all desires. Desires can be millions, because there are millions of things in the world which can become objects of desire. A desire always needs an object. Will is not objective; it does not want something else to be added to it. Will is simply your very life force, which wants to assert itself in its totality, in its wholeness, to bring all the flowers that are hidden in you, to be yourself. The will knows only one thing and that is you and your golden future. You, right now, are only seeds. But you can become great trees, reaching to the stars. Vincent van Gogh, one of the most significant Dutch painters, was also thought of just like Nietzsche -- a madman. He also had to live in a madhouse, and he was not a harmful man; his paintings were just not according to the ideas of people. Strange... in this world you are not even free to paint something according to your own idea, which is not harming anybody. He had painted his trees so tall that stars were left far behind -- they go above the stars. Naturally people used to ask him, "This is sheer madness. Where have you seen these trees going beyond the stars?" And what was always his answer is immensely significant. He used to say, "To me, trees represent the will of the earth. The earth is trying to reach beyond the stars, and you will see one day that the earth has succeeded. It is just the beginning, that's why you don't see the trees that high. But I can see far away in the future." But we cannot even forgive poets, we cannot forgive even visionaries for their harmless visions. But what a beautiful idea -- that the earth wants to reach beyond the stars. That defines will. Desire is always for possessions. Will is always for consciousness. Will is a lifeforce; a flame of your very being. It does not want anything else -- it simply wants itself to be actualized in its totality. It does not want to remain a seed, it does not want just to remain a dream; it wants to become a reality, it wants to become an actual phenomenon.
Gyan Saahaba, I can understand your problem. It may have arisen in many people's minds, because I have always spoken against desire, and while speaking on Friedrich Nietzsche's ZARATHUSTRA I supported totally his idea of the will. When on a rosebush flowers blossom, it is the will. They were hidden inside the bush and they were trying to come into manifestation -- just as a Gautam Buddha is hidden in you, or a Zarathustra is hidden in you and is trying to come out. You are a seed. Once this idea settles in you, you will find inside the seed a serpent starts uncoiling itself -- that is the will. Nietzsche has called it will to power. I myself would like to call it will to realization, will to actualization, will to become absolutely yourself. Desire is a very dangerous thing, because you can get lost in desire and millions are lost. The jungle of desires is very thick, and there is no end; one after another you will find desires and desires and desires. And no desire is fulfilling. Every desire only gives you a new frustration, every desire gives you a new desire. But this whole process of desiring takes your energy away from becoming a will to realization, a will to bring your potential
into flowering, into its ultimate expression. Desire is going astray from will. My effort here is to pull you back from your desires to one single-pointed will -- the will that wants to know yourself, the will that wants to be yourself, the will that wants whatever is hidden in you to become manifest. Mendel saves up for years to buy a really fine tailor-made suit, his very first, but after he has been out in it for an hour or so he notices there are things wrong with it. He goes back to the tailor. "The arms are too long," says Mendel. "No problem. Just hold your arms out further and bend at the elbows." "But the trouser legs are too long." "Right, no problem. Walk with your knees bent." "The collar is too high; it is halfway up the back of my head." "Okay. Just poke your head out further." So Mendel goes out into the world with his first tailor-made suit. As he is passing a
couple in the street the woman says, "Look at that poor man, he must have had polio." The man says, "But what a fine suit he is wearing!" Your desires may give you a fine suit, but they will also make you suffer from polio; everything will be wrong. Your desires will not allow you to be simply yourself, to be exactly your destiny. Will is a longing to achieve one's destiny.
Okay Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.

BELOVED OSHO, YOU SAID THE OTHER DAY THAT WE ARE BORN ALONE, WE LIVE ALONE AND WE DIE ALONE. YET IT SEEMS AS IF FROM THE DAY WE ARE BORN,
WHATEVER WE ARE DOING, WHOEVER WE ARE, WE SEEK TO RELATE TO OTHERS; IN ADDITION, WE ARE USUALLY ATTRACTED TO BEING INTIMATE WITH ONE PERSON IN PARTICULAR. WOULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT?

Dhyan Amiyo, the question that you have asked is the question of every human being. We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone. Aloneness is our very nature, but we are not aware of it. Because we are not aware of it, we remain strangers to ourselves, and instead of seeing our aloneness as a tremendous beauty and bliss, silence and peace, at easeness with existence, we misunderstand it as loneliness. Loneliness is a misunderstood aloneness. Once you misunderstand your aloneness as loneliness, the whole context changes. Aloneness has a beauty and grandeur, a positivity; loneliness is poor, negative, dark, dismal.
Everybody is running away from loneliness. It is like a wound; it hurts. To escape from it, the only way is to be in a crowd, to become part of a society, to have friends, to create a family, to have husbands and wives, to have children. In this crowd, the basic effort is that you will be able to forget your loneliness. But nobody has ever succeeded in forgetting it. That which is natural to you, you can try to ignore -- but you cannot forget it; it will assert again and again. And the problem becomes more complex because you have never seen it as it is; you have taken it for granted that you are born lonely. The dictionary meaning is the same; that shows the mind of the people who create dictionaries. They don't understand at all the vast difference between loneliness and aloneness. Loneliness is a gap. Something is missing, something is needed to fill it, and nothing can ever fill it because it is a misunderstanding in the first place. As you grow older, the gap also grows bigger. People are so afraid to be by themselves that they do any kind of stupid thing. I have seen people playing cards alone; the other party is not there. They have invented games in which the same person plays cards from both sides. Somehow one wants to remain engaged. That engagement may be with people, may be with work.... There are workaholics; they are afraid when the weekend comes close -- what are they going to do? And if they don't do anything, they are left to themselves, and that is the most painful experience.
You will be surprised to know that it is on the weekends that most of the accidents in the world happen. People are rushing in their cars to resort places, to sea beaches, to hill stations, bumper to bumper. It may take eight hours, ten hours to reach, and there is nothing for them to do because the whole crowd has come with them. Now their house, their neighborhood, their city is more peaceful than this sea resort. Everybody has come. But some engagement.... People are playing cards, chess; people are watching television for hours. The average American watches television five hours a day; people are listening to the radio... just to
avoid themselves. For all these activities, the only reason is -- not to be left alone; it is very fearful. And this idea is taken from others. Who has told you that to be alone is a fearful state? Those who have known aloneness say something absolutely different. They say there is nothing more beautiful, more peaceful, more joyful than being alone. But you listen to the crowd. The people who live in misunderstanding are in such a
majority, that who bothers about a Zarathustra, or a Gautam Buddha? These single individuals can be wrong, can be hallucinating, can be deceiving themselves or deceiving you, but millions of people cannot be wrong. And millions of people agree that to be left to oneself is the worst experience in life; it is hell. But any relationship that is created because of the fear, because of the inner hell of being left alone, cannot be satisfying. Its very root is poisoned. You don't love your woman, you are simply using her not to be lonely; neither does she love you. She is also in the same paranoia; she is using you not to be left alone. Naturally, in the name of love anything may happen -- except love. Fights may happen, arguments may happen, but even they are preferred to being lonely: at least somebody is there and you are engaged, you can forget your loneliness. But love is not possible, because there is no basic foundation for love. Love never grows out of fear. You are asking, "You said the other day that we are born alone, we live alone and we die alone. Yet it seems as if from the day we are born, whatever we are doing, whoever we are, we seek to relate to others."
This seeking to relate to others is nothing but escapism. Even the smallest baby tries to find something to do; if nothing else, then he will suck his own big toes on his feet. It is an absolutely futile activity, nothing can come out of it, but it is engagement. He is doing something. You will see in the stations, in the airports, small boys and girls carrying their teddy bears; they cannot sleep without them. Darkness makes their loneliness even more dangerous. The teddy bear is a great protection; somebody is with them.
And your God is nothing but a teddy bear for grown-ups. You cannot live as you are. Your relationships are not relationships. They are ugly. You are using the other person, and you know perfectly well the other person is using you. And to use anybody is to reduce him into a thing, into a commodity. You don't have any
respect for the person. "In addition," you are asking, "we are usually attracted to being intimate with one person in particular." It has a psychological reason. You are brought up by a mother, by a father; if you are a
boy, you start loving your mother and you start being jealous of your father because he is a competitor; if you are a girl, you start loving your father and you hate your mother because she is a competitor. These are now established facts, not hypotheses, and the result of it turns your whole life into a misery. The boy carries the image of his mother as the model of a woman. He becomes conditioned continuously; he knows only one woman so closely, so intimately. Her face, her hair, her warmth -- everything becomes an imprint. That's exactly the scientific word used: it becomes an imprint in his psychology. And the same happens to the girl about the father. When you grow up, you fall in love with some woman or with some man and you think,
"Perhaps we are made for each other." Nobody is made for anyone. But why do you feel attracted towards one certain person? It is because of your imprint. He must resemble your father in some way; she must resemble your mother in some way. Of course no other woman can be exactly a replica of your mother, and anyway you are not in search of a mother, you are in search of a wife. But the imprint inside you decides
who is the right woman for you. The moment you see that woman, there is no question of reasoning. You immediately feel attraction; your imprint immediately starts functioning - - this is the woman for you, or this is the man for you. It is good as far as meeting once in a while on the sea beach, in the movie hall, in the
garden is concerned, because you don't come to know each other totally. But you are both hankering to live together; you want to be married, and that is one of the most dangerous steps that lovers can take. The moment you are married, you start becoming aware of the totality of the other person, and you are surprised on every single aspect -- "Something went wrong; this is not the woman, this is not the man" -- because they don't fit with the ideal that you are carrying within you. And the trouble is multiplied because the woman is carrying an ideal of her father -- you don't fit with it. You are carrying the ideal of your mother -- she does
not fit with it. That's why all marriages are failures. Only very rare marriages are not failures -- and I hope God should save you from those marriages which are not failures, because they are psychologically sick. There are people who are sadists, who enjoy torturing others, and there are people who are masochists,
who enjoy torturing themselves. If a husband and wife belong to these two categories, that marriage will be a successful marriage. One is a masochist and one is a sadist -- it is a perfect marriage, because one enjoys being tortured and one enjoys torturing. But ordinarily it is very difficult to find out in the first place whether you are a masochist or a sadist, and then to look for your other polarity.... If you are wise enough you should
go to the psychologist and enquire who you are, a masochist or a sadist? and ask if he can give you some references which can fit with you. Sometimes, just by accident, it happens that a sadist and masochist become married. They are the happiest people in the world; they are fulfilling each other's needs. But what kind of need is this? -- they are both psychopaths, and they are living a life of torture. But otherwise, every marriage is going to fail, for one simple reason: the imprint is the problem. Even in marriage, the basic reason for which you wanted to have the relationship is not fulfilled. You are more alone when you are with your wife than when you are alone. To leave husband and wife in a room by themselves is to make them both utterly miserable. One of my friends was retiring; he was a big industrialist, and he was retiring because of
my advice. I said, "You have so much and you don't have a son; you have two daughters and they are married in rich families. Now why unnecessarily bother about all kinds of worries -- of business, and income tax, and this and that? You can close everything; you have enough. Even if you live one thousand years, it will do." He said, "That's true. The real problem is not the business, the real problem is I will be left alone with my wife. I can retire right now if you promise me one thing, that you will live with us. I said, "This is strange. Are you retiring or am I retiring?" He said, "That is the condition. Do you think I am interested in all these troubles? It is just to escape from my wife." The wife was a great social worker. She used to run an orphanage, a house for widows, and a hospital particularly for people who are beggars and cannot pay for their treatment. I also asked her in the evening, "Do you really enjoy all this, from the morning till the
evening?" She said, "Enjoy? It is a kind of austerity, a self-imposed torture." I said, "Why should you impose this torture on yourself?" She said, "Just to avoid your friend. If we are left alone, that is the worst experience in life." And this is a love marriage, not an arranged marriage. They married each other against the whole family, the whole society, because they belonged to different religions, different castes; but their imprints gave them signals that this is the right woman, this is the right man. And all this happens unconsciously. That's why you cannot answer why you have fallen in love with a certain woman, or with a certain man. It is not a conscious decision. It has been decided by your unconscious imprint. Amiyo, this whole effort -- whether of relationships or remaining busy in a thousand and one things -- is just to escape from the idea that you are lonely. And I want it to be emphatically clear to you that this is where the meditator and the ordinary man part.
The ordinary man goes on trying to forget his loneliness, and the meditator starts getting more and more acquainted with his aloneness. He has left the world; he has gone to the caves, to the mountains, to the forest, just for the sake of being alone. He wants to know who he is. In the crowd, it is difficult; there are so many disturbances. And those who have known their aloneness have known the greatest blissfulness possible to human beings -- because your very being is blissful. After being in tune with your aloneness, you can relate; then your relationship will bring great joys to you, because it is not out of fear. Finding your aloneness you can create, you can be involved in as many things as you want, because this involvement will not
anymore be running away from yourself. Now it will be your expression; now it will be the manifestation of all that is your potential. Only such a man -- whether he lives alone or lives in the society, whether he marries or lives unmarried makes no difference -- is always blissful, peaceful, silent. His life is a dance, is a song, is a flowering, is a fragrance. Whatever he does, he brings his fragrance to it. But the first basic thing is to know your aloneness absolutely. This escape from yourself you have learned from the crowd. Because everybody is escaping, you start escaping. Every child is born in a crowd and starts imitating people; what others are doing, he starts doing. He falls into the same miserable situations as others are in, and he starts thinking that this is what life is all about. And he has missed life completely.
So I remind you, don't misunderstand aloneness as loneliness. Loneliness is certainly sick; aloneness is perfect health. Ginsberg visits Doctor Goldberg. "Ja, you are sick." "Not good enough. I want another opinion." "Okay," said Doctor Goldberg, "you are ugly too." We are all committing the same kinds of misunderstandings continually. I would like my people to know that your first and most primary step towards finding the meaning and significance of life is to enter into your aloneness. It is your temple; it is where your God lives, and you cannot find this temple anywhere else. You can go on to the moon, to Mars.... Once you have entered your innermost core of being, you cannot believe your own eyes: you were carrying so much joy, so many blessings, so much love... and you were escaping from your own treasures. Knowing these treasures and their inexhaustibility, you can move now into relationships, into creativity. You will help people by sharing your love, not by using them. You will give dignity to people by your love; you will not destroy their respect. And you will, without any effort, become a source for them to find their own treasures too. Whatever you make, whatever you do, you will spread your silence, your peace, your blessings into
everything possible. But this basic thing is not taught by any family, by any society, by any university. People
go on living in misery, and it is taken for granted. Everybody is miserable, so it is nothing much if you are miserable; you cannot be an exception. But I say unto you: You can be an exception. You just have not made the right effort.

BELOVED OSHO, IN MY MEDITATIONS, AS I TRY TO LOOK MORE AND MORE INSIDE, I OFTEN FEEL THAT THERE IS NOBODY. IT IS LIKE FALLING INTO AN ENDLESS BLACK GAP. AND I FEEL A LOT OF TENSION, AND WANTING TO RUN AWAY. IF THERE IS NO ME INSIDE, THEN WHOM SHOULD I LOVE? PLEASE HELP ME FIND THAT LOVE FOR MYSELF, AND THAT TOTALITY THAT YOU HAVE TALKED ABOUT SO MANY TIMES.

Shivam Annette, the question you have asked is one of the most important questions as far as the people who are meditating are concerned. Before I go into your question, a few necessary distinctions have to be understood. When I say, "Go inwards," that does not mean that you will find someone there waiting for you. On the contrary, the more you go inwards, the less and less you are an ego. You are, but the feeling of I-ness starts disappearing -- for the simple reason that the I can exist only in reference to Thou. If the Thou is not present, the I starts melting. Outside you are confronted with many Thous, they keep your I alive. But inside, there is no Thou; hence, there can be no I. That does not mean that you are not. It simply means
you are in your purity -- not in reference to somebody else, but just yourself, without any reference, in your absolute aloneness. Because our whole life we live as an ego, as an I, this disappearance of the I naturally creates fear and an effort to run away. Although it is natural, it is not right. You have to go through this fear, darkness, anxiety, tension, because your I is dying. Up to now, you have remained identified with the I, so it seems as if you are dying. But just look at a single point: you are watching fear, you are watching the disappearance of I, you are watching tension, you are watching blackness, darkness, you are watching a
feeling of nobodiness. This watcher is you.
Going inwards is to find the witness in its absolute purity, unpolluted by anything -- just a pure mirror, not reflecting anything. If mirrors were thinkers -- fortunately they are not -- and if they were brought up always with somebody looking in them, that would have given them an idea of who they are. And for many years, always reflecting somebody, they would have created a certain image of themselves -- that they are the reflectors. Just visualize that one day suddenly nobody reflects in the mirror. The mirror will feel fear. The mirror will feel as if he is falling into a deep abyss, dark, dismal, into nonexistence -- who is he? His identity is lost just because nobody is looking in the mirror. The mirror has not changed, in fact the mirror is pure. But with this purity he has never been acquainted; nobody has introduced him to this purity. Meditation takes you to your purity. Your purity is witnessing, watching, awareness. You have not asked, "Who is the watcher?" You are asking, "I find there is nobody." Who finds it? -- that's you! You will find nothingness, you will find nothing reflected in you; you will find emptiness. You have to change your focus from the object to your subjectivity. One thing is certain: the witness is present, and the inward journey is to find the witness -- is to find the pure mirror of your being.
You say, "In my meditations, as I try to look more and more inside, I often feel that there is nobody." But you are not conscious at all that you are finding that there is nobody. But you are! Do you think you are going to meet yourself as somebody? Do you think you are going to meet somebody who will say, "Hello, Shivam Annette, how do you do?" That will really freak you out -- "My God, I'm not one, I'm two!" This feeling that there is nobody is absolutely right. You are on the right track. Just go on being alert that you are still there, watching. All these are objects -- the nobody, the darkness, the fear, the tension.... "It is like falling into an endless black gap. And I feel a lot of tension and wanting to run away." Watch all these things. They are just your old habits. You have never been into your own depths; hence the fear of the unacquainted, of the unknown. You have always been going around and around -- but outside -- and you have even forgotten the path to your inner home. In the beginning it will look like an endless black gap. Allow it. Blackness has a
beauty of its own. Blackness is deep, is silent -- enjoy it! There is no need to run away from it. "If there is no me inside, then whom should I love?" There is certainly no me inside anyone. But there is something else far more important: there is something which can only be called your am-ness, your is-ness -- just your pure
existence. You call it me, because outside you need to refer to yourself. Have you watched small babies? In the beginning they often refer to themselves by their name, "Johnny is hungry." They are far more accurate. But in a society they will be thought to be insane. "Johnny is hungry?" Why don't you say, "I'm hungry" "Johnny" gives the idea that somebody else is hungry. Johnny is your name to be used by others. You cannot use it when you are referring to yourself. Then you have to refer to yourself as `I', `me', but not your name."
It happened in Thomas Alva Edison's life... he was one of the greatest scientists. As far as numbers of inventions are concerned he is unparallelled -- he invented one thousand things. It is almost impossible to find a thing which is not invented by Thomas Alva Edison. He was so much respected that nobody mentioned his name, just out of respect. His colleagues called him Professor, his students called him Sir, and obviously he didn't use his own name. Then came the first world war, and for the first time rationing was introduced, and he went to the rationing shop. There was a queue; he was standing in the queue and when the man in front of him had left, the clerk shouted loudly, "Who is Thomas Alva Edison?" And Thomas Alva Edison looked here and there, where is Thomas Alva Edison? The clerk was also a little puzzled, because this man ought to be Thomas Alva Edison; it was his number. And the whole queue was also puzzled. They were looking at each other, what is the matter? Finally one man from the back of the queue said to him, "Sir, as far as I remember, I have seen you. You are Thomas Alva Edison." And Edison said, "If you say so, perhaps I am." The clerk said, "Are you insane or what?"He said, "Not insane, but I have not heard this name for almost thirty years. I have forgotten it. Nobody calls me by the name. My father died when I was very young, my mother died. Now it is a far, faraway memory. I can remember that something like Thomas Alva Edison used to be my name, but for thirty years nobody has mentioned it. It is good that that man recognized me; otherwise I don't think that on my own I would have been able to recognize it myself."
It is a rare case, but thirty years is a long time, particularly for a man like Edison whose life is so full of creativity. His thirty years are almost three hundred years in your life. It is simply a social invention that you refer to others by their name, and you refer to yourself by I, me. But inside there is no other, and with the other gone, the me, the I, is gone. But there is no need to worry. You will not find your I, but you will find something greater: you will find your is-ness, your existence, your being. When I say "Love yourself," this is for those who have never gone inside, because they can always... they are bound to understand only a language of duality. Love yourself -- that means you are dividing yourself into two, the lover and the loved. You may not have thought about it, but if you go inside you will not love yourself, you will be love. You will be simply the energy called love. You will be loving; you will radiate love. Love will be your fragrance.

Goldstein, who looked Jewish, was walking down a street in Berlin just before the war, when he accidentally collided with a stout Nazi officer. "Schwein," bellowed the Nazi. "Goldstein," replied the Jew with a courteous bow. Sometimes you may need your name also; life gives strange situations. Goldstein did well. Rather than being offended, he introduced himself, just as the Nazi had introduced himself. But all these names can be used only on the outside. Inside you are nameless, you are egoless. Inside you are just a pure existence -- and out of that pure existence arises the aroma of love.

BELOVED OSHO, THE OTHER DAY, YOU TALKED ABOUT THE THIRD EYE AS A DOOR FOR
CONNECTING WITH YOU AND EXISTENCE. WHENEVER I FEEL OPEN, FLOWING, CONNECTING WITH YOU, OTHER PEOPLE, NATURE OR MYSELF, I MOSTLY FEEL IT IN MY HEART AS SILENCE AND EXPANDING SPACIOUSNESS, AND SOMETIMES AS RADIATING LIGHT. BELOVED OSHO, IS THIS THE SAME KIND OF EXPERIENCE YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT, OR IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONNECTING THROUGH THE THIRD EYE OR THE HEART; OR ARE THERE DIFFERENT STAGES?

Vedant Amod, what you are experiencing is in itself valuable, but it is not the experience of the third eye. The third eye is a little higher than your experience. The way the mystics in the East have categorized the evolution of consciousness is in seven centers. Your experiences belong to the fourth center, the heart. It is one of the most important centers, because it is exactly in the middle. Three centers are below it and three centers are above it. That's why love is such a balancing experience. Your description is, "Whenever I feel open, flowing, connecting with you, other people, nature or myself, I mostly feel it in my heart as silence and expanding spaciousness, and sometimes as radiating light. Is this the same kind of experience you were talking about?" I was talking about the third eye, which is above the heart. There are three centers above
the heart. One is in your throat, which is the center of creativity; one is between your two eyebrows, exactly in the middle, which is called the third eye. Just as you have two eyes to know the outside world... the third eye is only a metaphor, but the experience is knowing oneself, seeing oneself. The last center is sahastrara, the seventh; that is at the top of your head. As consciousness goes on moving upwards, first you know yourself, and in the second step you know the whole universe; you know the whole and yourself as part of it.
In the old language, the seventh is "knowing God," the sixth is "knowing yourself," the fifth is "being creative," and the fourth is "being loving, sharing and knowing others." With the fourth, your journey becomes certain; it can be guaranteed that you will reach the seventh. Before the fourth, there is a possibility you may go astray.
The first center is the sex center, which is for reproduction -- so that life continues. Just above it... the sex energy can be moved upwards, and it is a great experience; for the first time you find yourself self-sufficient.
Sex always needs the other. The second center is the center of contentment, selfsufficiency: you are enough unto yourself. At the third center you start exploring -- who are you? who is this self-sufficient being? These centers are all significant.... The moment you find who you are, the fourth center opens and you find you are love. Before the fourth the journey has started, but there is a possibility you may not be able to complete it. You can go astray. For example, finding yourself self-sufficient, contented, you can remain there; there is no need to do anything anymore. You may not even ask the question, "Who am I?" The sufficiency is so much that all questions disappear. A master is needed in these moments, so that you don't settle somewhere in the middle without reaching the goal. And there are beautiful spots to settle... feeling contented, what is the need to go on? But the master goes on nagging you and wants you to know who you are; you may be contented, but at least know who you are. The moment you know who you are, a new door opens, because you become aware of life, of love, of joy. You can stay there; it is so much, there is no need to move any more. But the master goads you on, "Move to the fourth! Unless you find the purest energy of love, you will not
know the splendor of existence." After the fourth, you cannot go astray. Once you have known the splendor of existence, creativity arises on its own. You have known beauty; you would like to create it also. You want to be a creator. A tremendous longing for creativity arises. Whenever you feel love, you always feel creativity just as a shadow coming with it. The man of creativity cannot simply go on looking outside. There is much beauty outside... but he becomes aware that just as there is an infinite sky outside, to balance it there must be the same infinity inside. If a master is available, it is good; if he is not available, these experiences will lead you onwards.
Once your third eye is opened, and you see yourself, the whole expanse of your consciousness, you have come very close to the temple of God; you are just standing on the steps. You can see the door and you cannot resist the temptation to go inside the temple and see what is there. There you find universal consciousness, there you find enlightenment, there you find ultimate liberation. There you find your eternity.
So these are the seven centers -- just arbitrarily created divisions, so the seeker can move from one to another in a systematic way; otherwise, there is every possibility, if you are working by yourself, to get muddled. Particularly before the fourth center there are dangers, and even after the fourth center....
There have been many poets who have lived at the fifth center of creativity and never gone ahead -- many painters, many dancers, many singers who created great art, but never moved to the third eye. And there have been mystics who have remained with the third eye, knowing their own inner beauty; it is so fulfilling that they thought they had arrived. Somebody is needed to tell you that there is still something more ahead;
otherwise, in your ignorance, what you will do is almost unpredictable. Mike had decided to join the police force and went along for the entrance examination. The examining sergeant, realizing that the prospective recruit was an Irishman, decided to ask him a simple question. "Who killed Jesus Christ?" he asked. Mike looked worried and said nothing, so the sergeant told him not to worry and that he could have some time to think about it. Mike was on his way home when he met Paddy. "Well," said Paddy, "are you a policeman yet?" "Not only that," says Mike, "but I am on my first case." Man is such that he needs someone who has known the path and knows the pitfalls, knows the beautiful spots where one can remain stuck, and has compassion enough to go on pushing you -- even against you -- until you have reached to the final stage of your potentiality.

BELOVED OSHO, NIETZSCHE WROTE: "HE WHO FIGHTS WITH MONSTERS SHOULD LOOK TO IT THAT HE HIMSELF DOES NOT BECOME A MONSTER, AND WHEN YOU GAZE LONG INTO AN ABYSS THE ABYSS ALSO GAZES INTO YOU." THE LAST PHRASE SEEMS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DESCRIPTION OF THE ART OF MEDITATION. WOULD YOU COMMENT?

Maneesha, Friedrich Nietzsche is a strange philosopher, poet and mystic. His strangeness is that his philosophy is not the ordinary rational approach to life; his strangeness is also that he writes poetry in prose. He is also a strange mystic, because he has never traveled the ordinary paths of mysticism. It seems as if mysticism happened to him. Perhaps being a philosopher and a poet together, he became available to the experiences of the mystic also. The philosopher is pure logic, and the poet is pure irrationality. The mystic is beyond both. He cannot be categorized as rational, and he cannot be categorized as irrational. He is both, and he is neither. It very rarely happens that a philosopher is a poet also, because they are diametrically
opposite dimensions. They create a tremendous inner tension in the person. And Nietzsche lived that tension to its very extreme. It finally led him into madness, because on the one hand he is one of the most intelligent products of Western philosophy, without parallel, and on the other hand so full of poetic vision that certainly his heart and his head would have been constantly fighting. The poet and the philosopher cannot be good
bedfellows. It is easy to be a poet, it is easy to be a philosopher, but it is a tremendous strain to be both.
Nietzsche is not in any way mediocre -- his philosopher is as great a genius as his poet. And the problem becomes more complicated because of this tension between the heart and the mind. He starts becoming available to something more -- more than philosophy, more than poetry. That's what I am calling mysticism.
His statement is of tremendous importance: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster." I have always been telling you that you can choose a friend without being too cautious, but you cannot afford an enemy without being very alert -- because the friend is not going to change you, but the enemy is going to change you. With the friend there is no fight, with the friend there is no quarrel; the friend accepts you as you are, you accept the friend as he is. But with the enemy the situation is totally different. You are trying to destroy the enemy and the enemy is trying to destroy you. And naturally you will affect each other, you will start taking methods, means, techniques from each other. After a while it becomes almost impossible to find who is who. They both have to behave in the same way, they both have to use the same language, they both have to be on the same level. You cannot remain on your heights and fight an enemy who lives in the dark valleys down below; you will have to come down. You will have to be as mean, as cunning as your enemy is -- perhaps you will have to be more, if you want to win. Nietzsche is right. "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." The second part of the statement is actually the very essence of meditation: it is gazing into emptiness, nothingness, into an abyss. And when you gaze into an abyss it is not one-sided; the abyss is also gazing into your eyes. When I am looking at you, it is not only that I am looking at you; you are also looking at me. The abyss has its own ways of gazing into you. The empty sky also gazes into you, the faraway star also looks into you. And if the abyss is allowed to gaze into you, soon you will find a great harmony between yourself and the silence of the abyss, you will also become part of the abyss. The abyss will be outside you and also inside you. What he is saying is immensely beautiful and truthful. The meditator has to learn to gaze into things which he wants to become himself. Look into the silent sky, unclouded. Look long enough, and you will come to a point when small clouds of thoughts within you
disappear, and the two skies become one. There is no outer, there is no inner: there is simply one expanse.
For thousands of years meditators have been gazing at the early sun in the morning, because later it becomes too difficult to gaze into it. But the early sun, just rising above the horizon, can be looked into without any danger to the eyes. And if you allow, then the light and the color that is spread all over the horizon starts spreading within you -- you become part of the horizon. You are no longer just a gazer; you have become part of the scenery.
An ancient parable in China is that an emperor who was very interested in paintings, and had a great collection of paintings, announced a great prize for the best painting. All the great painters of the country arrived in the capital and started working. One painter said, "It will take at least three years for me." The emperor said, "But I'm too old." The painter said, "You need not be worried. You can give me the award right now. If you are not certain of your life, I am certain about my painting. But I'm not asking either. I am
just saying that I am going to do a job that has never been done. I want to show you what a painting should really be; so forget about your death and forget about the award. You allow me three years and a separate place in the palace. Nobody can come while I'm working; for three years I have to be left alone." Each day was such an excitement for the emperor. The man was a well-known painter, and not only a painter -- he was a Zen master too. Finally those three years passed, and the painter invited the emperor... he took him into the room. On the whole wall he had painted a beautiful forest with mountains, with waterfalls, and a small footpath going round about and then getting lost into the trees behind the mountains. The painting was so alive, so three-dimensional, that the emperor forgot completely that it was a painting and asked the painter, "Where does this footpath lead to?" The painter said, "I have never gone on it, but we can go and have a look at where it goes."
The story is that the painter and the emperor both walked on the path, entered the forest, and have not returned since then. The painting is still preserved; it shows the footprints of two persons on the footpath. It seems to be absolutely unbelievable, but the meaning is of tremendous importance. The painter is saying that unless you can be lost in a painting, it is not a painting. Unless you can become part of the scene, something is dividing you; you are not allowing yourself, totally, to be one with it, whether it is a sunrise or a sunset....
A meditator has to learn in different ways, from different sides of life, to be lost. Those are the moments when you are no more, but just a pure silence, an abyss, a sky, a silent lake without any ripples on it. You have become one with it. And all that is needed is -- don't be just a passer-by, don't be a tourist, don't be in a hurry. Sit down and relax. Gaze into the silence, into the depth, and allow that depth to enter into your eyes, so that it can reach to your very being.
A moment comes when the gazer and the gazed become one, the observer and the observed become one. That is the moment of meditation -- and there are no more golden experiences in existence. These golden moments can be yours... just a little art, or rather a little knack, of losing yourself into something vast, something so big that you cannot contain it. But it can contain you! And you can experience it only if you allow it to contain you.
Friedrich Nietzsche is right; he must have said what he had experienced himself. It was unfortunate that he was born in the West. In the East he would have been in the same category as Gautam Buddha or Mahavira or Bodhidharma or Lao Tzu. In the West he had to be forced into a madhouse. He himself could not figure it out. It was too much: on the one hand his great philosophical rationality, on the other hand his insights into poetry, and those sudden glimpses of mystic experiences... it was too much. He could not manage and started falling apart. They were all so different from each other, so diametrically opposite... he tried hard somehow to keep them together, but the very effort of trying to keep them together became a nervous breakdown.
The same experience in the East would have been a totally different phenomenon. Instead of being a nervous breakdown, it would have been a breakthrough. The East has been working for thousands of years; its whole genius has been devoted to only one thing, and that is meditation. It has looked into all possible nooks and corners of meditation, and it has become capable to allow poetry, to allow philosophy, without any problem, without any opposition and tension. On the contrary they all become, under meditation, a kind of
orchestra -- different musical instruments, but playing the same tune. There have been many misfortunes in the world, but I feel the most sorry for Friedrich Nietzsche because I can see what great potential he had. But being in a wrong atmosphere, having no precedent and having no way to work it out by himself, alone.... It was certainly too much for an individual, for any individual, to work it out alone. Thousands of people have worked from different corners, and now, in the East, we have a whole atmosphere in which any kind of genius can be absorbed. And meditation will not be disturbed by genius; meditation will be enhanced, and his own particular dimension -- poetry, literature, science -- will also be enhanced. Nietzsche was just in a wrong place, surrounded by wrong people who could only think of him as mad.And to them, he appeared mad. Two kids were playing on the sea beach. One of them asked the other, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" He said, "When I grow up I want to be a great prophet. I'm going to speak of profound
truths." The first boy said, "But they say nobody listens to the prophets, so why become a prophet?" "Ah," he said, "us prophets are very obstinate." This very obstinacy became a problem, because the whole society was against him, a single man single-handedly fighting for truths which people cannot even understand, but
are absolutely ready to misunderstand. If a man is sincere and if he cannot understand a thing he should say, "I do not understand it." But people are not so sincere. When they don't understand a thing they immediately start misunderstanding it. Misunderstanding is their way of hiding their ignorance. The people who have come to know some truth are certainly obstinate. You can crucify them, but you cannot change their minds. You can throw them into madhouses, but they will go on repeating their insights. Their insights become more valuable than their lives themselves.
The East, at least in the past, has been the best soil for prophets, for philosophers, for poets, for mystics. It is no longer the case, but still something of the past goes on echoing in the atmosphere. The West has corrupted the East too. The West knows the tradition of Socrates being poisoned, it knows Jesus Christ's crucifixion; the East was absolutely innocent. It was an accepted fact that everybody had the right to say his truth. If you don't agree with him, that does not mean that you have to kill him. Don't agree -- that is your
right; at least we can agree to disagree with each other, but there is no need to bring swords when you don't have arguments. Swords cannot become arguments. But the atmosphere has been changing for almost two thousand years, since this country became invaded again and again by barbarous, uncivilized, uncultured people who had no idea what philosophy was. And finally, for three hundred years the West has tried in
every possible way to corrupt the mind of the East through its educational system -- through schools, through colleges, through universities. Now even in the East crucifixion is possible. Just the other day one of the great Hindu religious leaders, equivalent to the pope of the Catholics, Shankaracharya Svarupananda, was here for a few days. I told Neelam, when she informed me of this, that he would say something against me certainly. But he spoke against me only on the last day, before leaving, so when the information came to me, he had already gone. What he had spoken against me is so poor that one feels great pity. What has happened to the great philosophical traditions of the East? -- and these people represent those traditions. He said about me: "He is the most dangerous man, unparallelled in the history of mankind." He has not given any reason why. To me this is a compliment. But at least I have the right to ask what is the reason for giving me such a great compliment -- "unparallelled in the whole history of mankind." And what danger am I? This was not the way of the East. When I was listening to his statement I remembered about the original shankaracharya, Adi Shankaracharya. He is a predecessor of nearly fourteen hundred years ago. He died a young man, he died when he was thirty-three. He created a new tradition of sannyasins, he created four temples in all the four directions, and he appointed four shankaracharyas, one for each direction. I remembered about him that he traveled all over the country defeating great, well-known philosophers -- that was in a totally different atmosphere. One great philosopher was Mandan Mishra; he had a great following. Still in his memory a town exists. I have been there many times. It is on a beautiful bank of the Narmada, one of the most beautiful rivers. That is the place where the river descends from the mountains, so it has tremendous beauty. The city is called Mandala, in memory of Mandan Mishra.
Shankara must have been at the age of thirty when he reached Mandala. Just on the outskirts of the town, by a well, a few women were drawing water. He asked them, "I want to know where the great philosopher Mandan Mishra lives." Those women started giggling and they said, "Don't be worried, you just go inside. You will find it." Shankara said, "How will I find it?" They said, "You will find it, because even the parrots around his house -- he has a big garden and there are so many parrots in the garden -- they repeat poetries from the UPANISHADS, from the VEDAS. If you hear parrots repeating, singing beautiful poetries from the Upanishads, you can be certain that this is the house of Mandan Mishra." He could not believe it, but when he went and he saw, he had to believe. He asked Mandan Mishra -- he was old, nearabout seventy -- "I have come a very long way from South India to have a discussion with you, with a condition: If I am defeated, I will become your disciple, and if you are defeated, you will have to become my disciple. Naturally, when I become your disciple all my disciples will become your disciples and the same will be true if you become my disciple -- all your disciples will become my disciples."
Old Mandan Mishra looked at the young man and he said, "You are too young and I feel a little hesitant whether to accept this challenge or not. But if you are insistent, then there is no way; I have to accept it. But it does not look right that a seventy year old man who has fought thousands of debates should be fighting with a young man of thirty. But to balance, I would suggest one thing" -- and this was the atmosphere that has a tremendous value -- "to substitute, I will give you the chance to choose the judge who will decide. So
you find a judge. You are too young, and I feel that if you are defeated at least you should have the satisfaction that the judge was your choice." Now where to find a judge? The young man had heard much about Mandan Mishra's wife. Her name was Bharti. She was also old, sixty-five. He said, "I will choose your wife to be the judge." This is the atmosphere, so human, so loving. First Mandan Mishra gave him the chance to choose, and then Shankara chose Maridan Mishra's own wife! And Bharti said, "But this is not right, I'm his wife, and if you are defeated you may think it is because I may have been prejudiced, favorable towards my husband." Shankara said, "There is no question of any suspicion. I have heard much about your
sincerity. If I'm defeated, I'm defeated. And I know perfectly well if your husband is defeated, you will be the last person to hide the fact." Six months it took for the discussion. On each single point that man has thought about they quarreled, argued, quoted, interpreted, and after six months the wife said, "Shankara
is declared victorious. Mandan Mishra is defeated." Thousands of people were listening for these six months. It was a great experience to listen to these two so refined logicians, and this was a tremendous experience, that the wife declared Shankara to be the winner. There was great silence a for few moments, and then Bharti said, "But remember that you are only half a winner, because according to the scriptures the wife and husband makes one whole. I'm half of Mandan Mishra. You have defeated one half; now you will have to discuss with me." Shankara was at a loss. For six months he had tried so hard; many times he had been
thinking of giving up -- the old man was really very sharp even in his old age. Nobody has been able to stand against Shankara for six months, and now the wife says his victory is only half. Bharti said, "But I will also give you the chance to choose your judge." He said, "Where am I going to find a better judge than Mandan Mishra? You are such simple and fair and sincere people. But Bharti was very clever, more clever than Shankara had imagined, because she started asking questions about the science of sex. Shankara said, "Forgive me, I am a celibate and I don't know anything about sex." Bharti said, "Then you will have to accept your defeat, or if you want some time to study and experience, I'm willing to give you some time." He was caught in such a strange situation; he asked for six months and six months were given. "You can go and learn as much as you can because this will be the subject to begin with, then later on, other subjects. It is not easy," Bharti said, "to beat Mandan Mishra. But that half was easier! I am a much harder woman. If I can declare the defeat of my husband, you can understand that I am a hard woman. It is not going to be easy. If you feel afraid don't come back; otherwise we will wait for six months." This atmosphere continued for thousands of years. There was no question of being angry, there was no question of being abusive, there was no question of trying to prove that you are right by your physical strength or by your arms or by your armies. These were thought to be barbarous methods; these were not for the cultured people.
Nietzsche was in a very wrong place in a wrong time; he was not understood by his contemporaries. Now, slowly, interest in him is arising; more and more people are becoming interested in him. Perhaps it would have been better for him to delay his coming a little. But it is not in our hands when to come and when to go. And people of his genius always come before their time. But he should have his respected place in the category of the Buddhas. That day is not far away. When all other so-called great philosophers of the West will be forgotten, Friedrich Nietzsche will still be remembered, because he has depths which have still to be explored, he has insights which have been only ignored; he has just been put aside as a madman. Even if he is a madman, that does not matter. What he is saying is so truthful that if to get those truths one has to become mad, it is a perfectly good bargain.